Ark: Survival Evolved - Dinos and Leveling Survival Game

Games
1542

Because I seem to be one of the few that never played the default map, and because I have a gaming buddy I would like to encourage getting into ARK (without needing to purchase all the expansion stuff to start,) we now have a third QT3 server running the default, “The Island,” map. The details are below, the password is the same as our other two servers, or you can PM me for additional details if needed.

It is running the same mods as the Ragnarok and Aberration servers.

Add the following to your Steam server list to find it:
192.154.253.89:27265

1543

Sweet! Thanks! I must admit I miss that map so may goof around there too.

1544

Yep, apparently I didn’t know this but all of the older maps have been added to and changed over time? It makes me wonder what they have in store for Aberration.

Kelan, I’m dropping you the CPanel info as well. If it ever needs updating, there are two “easy buttons” to handle that. One just updates the game, the other will do game+mods. After login, click Game Services, then either update server or the one below it for server plus mods. Either will open a pop-up window and tell you when done.

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If anyone else wants the CPanel info, let me know.

The server is set up quite similar to Ragnarok and Aberration, with just -slightly- faster leveling, and also will allow transfers in and out (character,dino,items.) The server is located east coast, based out of Charlotte, NC.

1545

Thanks! I appreciate it.

1546

No worries. It’ll be good to get some traffic on it. Now to convince my buddy it is a MUST play game. ;)

1547

Skipper I have a spare drake egg in my hatchery fridge if you are interested. Its only maybe 50 or 60 but it would be a good starter for you. Also there are currently 5 spino eggs in there all should be good mounts if you wanna upgrade.

1548

My excursions to the surface finally paid off last night.

I was waiting at the surface for night to start and raced out (on my rock drake) as soon as the fires stopped. (speaking of that, it is really annoying that the 90% day/10% day cycle seems to be the predominate cycle). At first there were not beacon’s visible, but there is a spot behind the purple obelisk where they come down. When I got there, a red drop was already on the ground.

Thus the normal procedure of cloaking, getting in position, hop off, grab the loot, hop back on, and running for high ground, all in less that 4 seconds. As Grem can testify, you really can’t delay on the surface otherwise you will get swarmed by reaper kings.

Because of how dangerous that is, I don’t look at the loot. I just hit the loot all and check once I’m reasonably safe. This time though, I got a mastercraft spino saddle BP that has about 86 armor, woohoo!

The crafting requirements are not terrible (for me at this stage of the game anway). 650 cementing paste (got thousands thanks to my snails), just over 5k hide (I toss hundreds of hide each night), 3400 fiber (make from thatch in the grinder and I get xp from it to boot!), and 350 silca pearls.

The pearls maybe a problem from some, but I live right on a death lake in the swamp that has quite a few pearls (along with anglers, crabs, electric eels, baryonyx, sarcos, and the evilest of evils, jelly fish.) I tamed a 140 or 150 angler awhile ago, so I can go out (with a large number of bodyguards) and harvest a ton whenever I need some.

In other adventures, I’ve found the Artifact of the Stalker that is waaaay south in the radiation zone. You pretty much need a rock drake to get in and out safely and in a decent amount of time. At first I was totally lost trying to figure out how to get to the artifact, but then I found a quick short cut once you are in the cave which saves a ton of time.

Next I need to find the entrance to the swamp cave so I can gather the artifact that is there.

1549

Nice on the BP will have to start farming some pearls.

1550

@Kelan @barstein @Grembel @Skipper

FYI, I’ve changed the server startup to automatically update mods. So if there ever is a mod update, just restart the servers and it will be taken care of.

1551

Thanks Ragan

1552

Good deal. I haven’t logged into the control panel for those two for a while. Is there a quick and easy process if there is a Steam update to ARK as well?

Been thinking about adding the all-in-one update on the Island server to be a nightly script running at around 4AM EST that will shut down, check mods and update, check Ark on steam and update, then restart the server.

I didn’t realize just how many updates happen or I would have done that initially.

1553

Didn’t want you guys to think I disappeared. I’m training a buddy on the Island server. We just takes our first Rex!

1554

Well done!

I am a little distracted myself the past few weeks. I need to log on and feed my little buddies!

1555

So, those of you who have played The Island already, there is a volcano up north. Down near the bottom there appears to be some sort of device, like a landing or teleport pad. You can’t get anywhere near it due to the heat. What the heck is that thing?

EDIT: Whoa … nevermind. It’s the Tek Cave and end of the game. No wonder it’s down there.

1556

My Ark time has been down lately as well. I still hop on to feed the dinos and do a surface beacon run.

Speaking of that, if you can make it to the surface exit that is in the south/rad zone, the surface beacons are great. If you go to the surface in the other two (green or swamp zones), there is only one beacon down at a time and usually it is blue. The southern surface has usually three purple or higher beacons coming down. The downside is there a lot more reaper kings.

I did snag a 155 drake egg, so I think I’ll make a small house/enclosed dino pen there and use the 155 drake as surface beacon gather. Then I can just fast travel to the house, gather loot until daytime, and leave it there until I’ve accumulated enough to justify a trip to pick it all up.

1557

And last night when I was doing another surface beacon loot run, I found another exit to the red obelisk area (from my previous post).

This exit is in the green zone, so it is absolutely safer than traveling all the way through the rad zone. It is over by the big broken bridge/suggested starter area that has no water.

I found it on accident last night when I getting a beacon. After I landed, I saw a paracer and had one of those “huh?” moments. After a little bit of exploring I figured out where it came out in the underground.

1558

Ragan, any tips for two noobs doing their first attempt at cave runs on the Island? Dino choices that can make it through, weapons, etc? We found this write up, but no tips on level needed, things to take for combat, etc.

Personal opinion incoming, and I tiered them rather than specific ordering:

Tier 1
Snow Cave: A pain in the ass because you’re dealing with extreme cold & level 200-300+ wolves, yetis and bats. You can’t get much more than a swarm of dimorphs in to help you.

Tier 2
The Caverns of Lost Hope: Requires a really strong water tame. Full of mosas and squids to wreck your day.Swamp Cave: Requires very specific gear (scuba/ghillie combo and a high level frog). With this gear it’s possible. Without it, it’s a nightmare of high level scorpions, spiders, meganeura swarms, and poison damage over time. Upper South Cave: Actually the only cave I haven’t done on the island but I hear it’s challenging.

Tier 3
South East Cave: High Temperatures, easy to get lost, lava pits, and standard cave enemies. Bring some grappling hooks for safety, good weapons, and a way to deal with the heat.
North East Cave: Lot of bats and ledges. Very easy to fall to your death here. Grappling hooks and parachutes simplify it a lot.
Caverns of Lost Faith: Not exceptionally challenging (Can be done on a high level megalodon), but really requires a water dino to be safe. Jellyfish are the real danger in here.

Tier 4
Central Cave: Pretty basic and straight forward cave crawl with standard cave mobs. Just watch out for arthrolopluera who will destroy your armor with their spit and can hit you even on a mount.
Lower South Cave: Same as above.
North West Cave: The only real threats here are not paying attention and falling to your death and getting lost. There are a few bats and spiders. Bring some grappling hooks and be prepared to kill some bugs to make it a cake walk, but the hooks aren’t required. It’s possible to get the artifact without ever going over a gap.

1559

In this case, my advice will not be very good because by the time the new Island caves were added, I was playing on the Center map for a long time. My server cluster had the Center, Island, & Scorched Earth.

I had spent several months breeding up a super rex army to do boss fights. Once I got my army breed, imprinted and leveled, I transferred them over to the Island, because the Center boss fights were broke at the time. Then my friend and I started our boss farming. We killed the gamma & beta broodmother, gamma, beta, & alpha megapithicus, & the beta dragon.

(hang on, I’m getting to my point)

Killing the beta dragon gave us access to the tek transmitter, which is a portal obelisk. You can upload and download characters/dinos/gear with it, provided your server settings allow it. My servers also used the S+ mod, so we could make the S+ tek transmitter. And like all S+ items, you can pick up the S+ tek transmitter.

(Now my point)

We placed S+ tek transmitters in nearly all the Island caves we cared about. Which I think was just the swamp cave (I was farming for better rex & therizin saddle blueprints) and the northern ice cave. Then we would upload whatever dinos we wanted into a tek transmitter at our Island base, travel to the cave, then download the dino inside the cave.

I used the northern ice cave as my leveling spot for dinos. Once you are past the very narrow part, you can ride a rex around in there. It can be a tight fit in spots, but it is doable. I downloaded a thyalco for the swamp cave.

For the water caves, I recommend a mated pair of basilosaurus. They are immune to the jellyfish stun & squid grapple. I think they are immune to the electric eel debuff.

The short version is you have to be creative and figure out any way to bring the biggest possible dino into the cave. Even if you have to bring eggs into the cave and hatch\raise the dino inside the cave.

1560

Okay that makes a ton of sense. It’s thinking outside of the box to make the caves easier. I was looking at it straight, which meant small dinos and how on earth do you live through the things, etc. We do have some that will work for the smaller caves, but this is still great advice.

So many things farmed just to plan all this out. ARK must be alien for “farm a lot.”

I’m assuming you guys heard about the exploit that caused that recent patch. Reddit had a good thread on it. Someone fessed up to what all it did. One of these is the main thread link, one is to a commenter who was the one that finally turned this in.

This guy, an exploiter, talks about it:

Then this guy, the one who told the devs about it, comments as well:

1561

One of many reasons why I will never play on an official server. Of all my 4050 hours I’ve spent in Ark, I’ve been on an official server for probably 60 seconds because I wanted to test something, I think it was to determine if I had a mod mismatch with my server.

When I spawned in, someone had placed spike walls at the spawn location, so I couldn’t move or do anything. Pretty much sums up officials.